Chaos
by CoryphaeusRex
Summary: Dogs on leashes are all very well, but take away the leash and… chaos. Marauder-Era, SiriusxRemus, first multi-chapter fic in a good long while. Slash, but nothing much in the way of sex.
1. A Certain Kind of Student

**Author's Notes & Disclaimer: **This fic has been on before, you may recognise it, but it's only now it's getting a resubmit. I don't own Harry Potter, although I do have the de rigeur gang of friends who neatly correspond to Marauders and therefore must never ever read this fic. This is the first half of a birthday present for Demensha. Will contain (be patient, darlings) slash, the mildest of mild bad language, and almost-sexual situations. Reviews are always loved.

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It was definitely coming to something, thought Horace Slughorn, when his own store cupboard was being broken into. He had strolled along to his classroom this morning, whistling happily after a rather substantial breakfast, only to find the door slightly ajar, and some bottles and jars in mild disarray.

A quick mental stock-take later, and a frown creased the Professor's wide face. It was mainly the standard equip that had been stolen, in painstakingly precise quantities that could only be combined to form a severely limited variety of things, all of which were _way _beyond even NEWT level. He shook his head, dismissing it as a student who had run out of some basics, but had just been too shy to ask for a top-up.

He had reckoned without a certain kind of student, with a certain kind of mind, who right at that very moment was brewing up a potion (of his own invention, it must be said) that was going to make some very specific people _very _sick indeed. And soon.

_Dogs on leashes are all very well, but take away the leash and… chaos._


	2. Practically Perfect

"Salad, Prongs? You bloody poof!"

James glared at Sirius as his extremely (and, some would hope, terminally) loud voice echoed from the walls of the Great Hall. He briefly contemplated stabbing his 'friend' with a fork, but as his fist clenched on the silverware he saw Lily smiling at him from further down the table, and grudgingly stabbed a convenient lettuce leaf instead.

"'S good for you," he muttered.

Sirius stared at him.

"You mean to tell me you are seriously, _seriously_ turning down _this_ much gravy in order to eat dead leaves?" He wafted the steam rising from the gravy boat in James' direction. "You sick or something?"

James mumbled something unintelligible through a mouthful of greenery.

"Didn't quite catch that, mate," Sirius said, cheerfully helping himself to more Yorkshire puddings than even a growing boy had a right to expect.

"Lily's on a diet."

"And? You're not, like, symbiotic, you know."

"I'm her moral support."

"Oh, is that what they're calling it these days?" Sirius began to pour gravy on his plate, the carefully constructed buttresses of mashed potato and beef serving to stop the plate overflowing.

James looked at the food longingly, and took another miserable mouthful of plant life.

"If you eat any less, James, you might disappear," Remus said mildly from the other side of the table. He looked up from his star chart, slightly unnerved that he was now the centre of attention. "I mean, look at you."

He had a point. James had grown into the perfect build for a Seeker, with the bare minimum of surplus flesh over a lean, lanky frame. He'd almost passed the point where he was causing his mother to despair by producing ever more inches of wrist and ankle from his clothing, but he still seemed to be mostly constructed of broomsticks and knees.

"You could stand to lose a couple of pounds," James went on the defensive, poking Sirius in the arm with his fork.

"The hell I could. I'm practically perfect, me." Sirius struck a 'macho man' pose, and a pair of Hufflepuff girls passing by giggled. He winked at James. "See? Point proven."

There was an awkward thump as Peter seated himself next to Remus, eyeing the roast potatoes greedily. A malicious glint appeared in Sirius' eye.

"Now, fatty Wormtail over there, he could do with some salad. Maybe there's the body of an Adonis under that puppy fat," he said, mock-encouragingly, but spoiled the effect by laughing uproariously when Remus raised an eyebrow at him.

Peter, pink with embarrassment, reached defiantly for the salad and filled his plate with the unappetising, wilted leaves. James seemed encouraged by having a comrade in misery, and he looked optimistically at Remus.

The pale boy shook his head.

"Not for me, James. Too little, shall we say, protein?"

There was much clearing of throats and returning attention to meals. Remus had been looking peaky for days, and they all knew what that meant. Another midnight excursion, death-defying escapades and tensions running high and wanting to beat the person who puts a foot wrong on the way to the Shrieking Shack. Fun.


	3. Bet You A Sickle

It had been raining all afternoon. Sirius had been staring out of the window willing the clouds to clear and the storm to stop. He hated the smell of wet dog, more so when it was coming from him. Behind him, in the common room, Peter and Remus were getting on with homework, the swots. James was... somewhere else. Combing his hair. Or artfully not combing it, more likely.

He was misting up the glass when he heard the door to the boys' dormitories open and then slam, very abruptly. He looked up, and saw James lurching towards him like a zombie. There were livid purple patches under his skin, and he looked like he'd been beaten senseless by an invisible assailant.

"Prongs? Mate? You okay?" Sirius asked, just at the moment when James' feet gave up on him and he fell forward. Sirius caught him, barely, and as he staggered under the weight he glared at the two still doing homework.

"Little help here?" he called. Peter, always anxious to be of assistance, leapt to his feet but as soon as he did so he fell straight over again. Sirius groaned.

"Oh, Wormtail, you spaz!" he shouted, angry and worried and almost collapsing himself under James' surprisingly heavy dead weight.

Remus sprang from his seat and managed to stop Sirius' knees from buckling by lifting James' other arm and taking most of the weight – he tended to have a greater strength than usual at this time of the month.

Peter hadn't gotten up.

"Check if he's bashed his head," Remus said, and Sirius gladly left him with James and went to check on Peter. He stood over the little boy's prone form, even from here he could see the purple bruise-like blotches forming on the visible skin.

Sirius looked distastefully down at his robe, which was now decorated with strings of James-drool.

"I suppose we'd better get them to the Infirmary," he said, prodding Peter with his foot. Remus hefted James across his shoulders and looked pointedly at Sirius.

"I bet you a Sickle it was that salad," Sirius said as he hauled Peter out of the portrait hole.


	4. Two Men Down

The rain had stopped by the time they got back to the common room, and the sun was hanging low in the sky. The diagnosis of 'food poisoning' delivered in a doubtful tone by the duty nurse hadn't done anything to soothe Remus or Sirius' apprehensions, and with only a few hours to go until they would be out there, under the moon with nobody to push the knot on the Whomping Willow and only one fielder to keep Remus in check, it wasn't looking good.

Remus was sitting in a battered armchair, his head in his hands. Sirius was perched on the arm of a sofa, throwing a tennis ball so it ricocheted off the floor and wall and ended up back in his hand.

_Thu-thump._

"You think they're going to be okay?" Remus asked, after a while.

_Thu-thump._

"Yep," Sirius said, almost missing the catch and holding precariously onto his balance. "Eventually."

"By tonight?"

_Thu-thump._

"Not a chance in hell," Sirius didn't sound all too concerned.

_Thu-thump._

"What are we going to do?"

"Same as usual. Just two men down." Sirius attempted a different angle, which included the side of the fireplace in the ricochet. It went wide.

_Thu-thu-thump. Thump. Thump._

He stretched, and stood up to retrieve the ball. Remus glared at him.

"We can't do it without Peter."

"Sure we can. Dead easy. Who needs fatty Wormtail?"

There was a crash as Remus' hands hit the table in front of him. Hard.

"We do! And you bloody know it!"

Sirius rounded on him, forgetting about the errant tennis ball.

"Are you saying I'm not up to it on my own?"

Remus stood up abruptly, fists clenching by his sides.

"And what if I am?"

"Then I'll lay you out. You won't cause any trouble then," Sirius said, cracking his knuckles.

They were squaring up to each other, in that primal, chest-beating way that doesn't need a reason, just a funny look and a grudge that's been burning for a while. Sirius may have been true to his word and punched Remus, had Lily not walked in.

All the shimmering tension in the air vanished, and the two boys tried to look as though they had been nonchalantly standing around chatting. Lily smiled brightly at them, then looked around. Her pretty smile turned into a pretty look of confusion.

"Where's James?"

Sirius immediately returned to his search for the tennis ball. Remus looked longingly at his homework, then sighed.

"Bit of a problem, Lily."


	5. Earth to Remus

Lily had cried. She'd fled to the Infirmary and was probably there still, as Sirius and Remus hadn't seen her come back in. When faced with tears, Sirius had been a typical awkward male, pretending it didn't have anything to do with him. Remus had been left to do the patting on the shoulder and that sort of thing. He'd been glad when she left.

The sun was even lower in the sky, and the blue was starting to haze into orange near the horizon.

Sirius had abandoned his tennis ball, but wasn't doing anything productive in its place.

"Earth to Remus," he said, waving a hand in his friend's direction. Remus had been staring at the same page of his Astronomy textbook for the past twenty minutes, and now he turned his attention to Sirius, staring at him with that same level look he'd been giving diagrams of the solar system.

"Did you have anything to say?" he asked, after a while of staring just beyond Sirius' left shoulder. "Or do you just have a thing about disrupting people's work?"

"Work," Sirius snorted. "To be that interested in a moon of Jupiter you normally need to have a girlfriend willing to visit the Astronomy tower every so often."

"I was thinking."

"Brooding. It's not thinking."

"Are you done?"

Sirius opened and closed his mouth a number of times. If he'd been more emotionally sensitive, he might have consoled Remus, told him everything was going to be all right, patted his shoulder and encouraged him. As it was, he shrugged.

"Whatever. You want to start seeing circles when you close your eyes, fine."

Remus stared at the page for about thirty seconds, before closing the book with a gentle thud.

"You really think you can hack this on your own?" he asked, and there was a note of genuine hope behind his challenging tone.

"'Course I can. I can take you in a fight any day, Moony boy," Sirius said, with a grin. Seeing the doubt on Remus' face, his grin faded. "You know I can do this on my own. I might need Prongs and Wormtail normally, but I can keep you in check on my own once in a while."

"I just hope this is a one-time-only occurrence," Remus sighed.


	6. Do Not Think About Teeth

Sirius was sitting at the top of the dormitory stairs, huddled tightly against the door. James' Invisibility Cloak was clutched in his hands, the fine, silky material soaking up the sweat from his palms.

He was nervous as all hell.

It was bad enough when the three of them were there. At least then it could be made into a fun game – watching Wormtail scramble along on his stubby little legs, gently mocking Prongs for his girly shape, pretending it was all canines together against the prey, and then being rewarded with a narrow miss from those massive jaws. They could laugh about it later, make up a points system that never stayed the same from month to month.

This time, there would only be one point, and he'd either get it or he wouldn't.

Remus finished straightening his robes and scrambled out the portrait hole without even bothering to wave to Sirius. Now this was it.

He swept the Invisibility Cloak around his shoulders, seeing that veil of shadow fall across the world and enjoying the feeling of being in a little cocoon where the rest of the world couldn't see you. He could just curl up on these stairs, go to sleep, and only wake when he tripped some unsuspecting first year up in the morning.

But then he'd be a failure. He'd never be able to look Remus in the eye again.

Sometimes duty is like a Stunning Spell to the face.

He made it out of the portrait on automatic, slightly wrong-footed by the fact that there was less shuffling and all-round awkwardness than usual. It didn't feel right, wandering around in James' cloak all by himself. Down the stairs all the way, past that tapestry, duck behind the next one and into the first floor corridor. Tiptoe past the sleeping portraits, down the final set of stairs, out the big door, make it look like it's a breeze, and home free. He could just see the last vestiges of sunlight disappearing over the horizon, and the moon was rising in its place.

He transformed, and took a moment to catch his breath. There was always this moment, just after transforming, where all the new colours and smells hit him at once, and unless he stood still for just a moment, he'd get his legs tangled up and fall over.

There was the smell-after-rain in the air, along with the fading scents of Madam Pomfrey and Remus. He set off at a trot over the grounds, doggy tongue hanging out, tasting the air as well as smelling it in odd synaesthetic colours.

The Whomping Willow was evidently feeling kind today, as it let him nudge the trunk with his nose after only six near misses, the last of which drew blood from his back – he could smell it, along with that smell, like ordinary leaves but more _alive_, that the Whomping Willow had.

He slunk along the passageway, and emerged into the Shrieking Shack to find Remus mid-transformation. He would have turned his back, but there were some things you didn't do and turning your back on a werewolf wasn't one of them. Even if he was your best friend the rest of the time.

It put Sirius' hackles up. Listening to those noises, the cracking and the crunching and the suppressed cries which made their way up to fully-fledged screams, and trying to forget that was your friend there, in agony so far beyond what you could comprehend. He always tried not to watch, would make sure he kept Remus in the range of the corner of his eye, but didn't look directly at the mutating limbs.

The screaming stopped, and all that was left was rough, loud breathing.

Sirius turned his attention to Remus, now fully transformed and sniffing the air. He barked, once, twice, a pathetic warning of 'or else' which would probably leave him as a smear on the floor.

That great werewolf head, with its huge jaws, swung towards him, surveying the irritant that would soon be a heap of crunchy bits. Sirius growled, all the fur on his back standing on end.

Remus growled in response, and it was the type of noise a lion would make when confronted with an angry kitten. Almost amused. He looked down at Sirius, and whatever was going through the remains of his mind didn't show on his face.

Sirius was standing over the trapdoor, braced for impact, ready to defend his post. Sometimes, they'd let Remus out of the Shack and into the grounds of Hogwarts, but that was only because James was fast enough to catch him if he got out of range. If Sirius let him out now, he could run til morning and not catch up. He was built for sturdiness, not speed.

Remus advanced on him, so close that Sirius could smell his breath, see it misting into strange colours in front of his eyes. A deep, rumbling growl came from the back of the werewolf's throat, and it was all Sirius could do not to cower on trembling limbs and scuttle out of the way, allowing the beast to roam the grounds all night.

He could feel the muscles in his legs threatening to shake, and mentally calmed them. Dogs could smell fear; werewolves could inspire it, and pull the idea out of your mind as an excuse to attack. Fur bristling, Sirius held his ground, running all the fear and adrenaline through the mill until it became belligerence and strength. Fight or flight, and Sirius was choosing the former.

It was the only advantage he had over Remus – keeping his mind intact. Although it wasn't much consolation, considering the werewolf had a supernatural turn of speed, muscles that would make a weightlifter weep, and above all, those big, strong jaws, with their ever so sharp teeth...

No. Defend trapdoor. Do not think about teeth.

Remus snarled at him, and stalked off to the other side of the small hut. He paced for a while, back and forth, those huge werewolf limbs causing the timbers of the floor to sing as he stepped on them. Then, he turned, surveyed Sirius for a second, and charged.

Not thinking about teeth was easier when they weren't snapping at your face.

Sirius danced aside, no longer thinking about where his feet were going and just responding to canine instincts. Remus whirled, and lunged at him again, but Sirius ducked under a flailing arm and continued leading the werewolf in a circle. He wasn't counter-attacking, he knew better than that, just tying Remus up with his own great strength and weight. Sirius' human way of fighting was a good first punch to the mouth and then you didn't have to do anything else, but he knew better than to take on Remus' mighty wolf form without a certain amount of alertness and agility.

They circled each other for a while, ducking and weaving, the werewolf always thrown a little off-balance by Sirius' dodges. After almost half an hour of this civilised, almost human combat, like fighters in the ring, Remus lunged, Sirius ducked and took a desperate chunk out of the werewolf's back leg.

He almost looked surprised.

Then, he retreated, back to the opposite side of the shack, where he sat back on his haunches and glared at Sirius, before raising his voice in a howl.

Sirius sat back down on the trapdoor, to rest.


	7. Ask Me When I'm Done Dying

It was several hours later, and Sirius was now slumped on the trapdoor, bleeding from several minor and unimportant injuries. He hadn't been _bitten_, that was the important thing, and he'd had worse wounds, including that time he'd been punched in the nose by Narcissa's then-boyfriend, a prefect. These would likely require someone with a little skill at healing, but Madam Pomfrey would tell him off for being such a baby, which was all well and good.

They had been in conflict for hours, and he was exhausted. Remus had followed a random pattern of retreats and charges, so Sirius hadn't been able to truly rest. Every time he'd been really tired, had wanted to sit down and sleep and let his aching legs cool down, Remus had only taken a few moments to gather himself.

The moon was about to set. It _had_ to be about to set. It had been too long, Sirius wasn't going to get up if Remus decided to attack him again. The werewolf would just have to worry at his corpse. He was beyond caring.

And then, although Sirius hated himself for it, he exulted as he heard the sound of bones cracking, and the screaming began. He closed his eyes, until it stopped, and there was only the quiet sound of Remus breathing, swallowing down tears.

He shed his own dog form, but remained lying on his belly on the trapdoor, too exhausted to get up.

"You okay?" Remus said, from the other side of the room. There was a scuffling sound, and Sirius realised he was dressing.

"Ask me when I'm done dying."

"Sorry about that," Remus' voice was hoarse, and as he shuffled across the floor to Sirius, he coughed. Sirius raised his head, prising his eyes open to see Remus' face, shiny with sweat, looming over him.

"'S no problem," he said, waving a hand feebly. "Told you I could take you in a fight."

"You can't be here when Pomfrey turns up, you know."

"When's she due?"

"Eight."

"'S fine. 'S only..." Sirius tried to focus on his watch, "five."

Remus laughed, breathlessly, and ruffled Sirius' hair.

"I suppose." There was another shuffling sound, and he lay down beside Sirius, who made an angry noise and tried to shuffle away, flopping like a fish out of water.

"Sweaty git, get 'way from me."

"Sod off."

Sirius wriggled ineffectually, but that was the last thing he remembered doing before unconsciousness claimed him.

He woke about an hour later, and his eyes shot open in panic, expecting Madam Pomfrey to begin hammering on the trapdoor at any second. The sky was only greying, and his head still felt like it was filled with cotton wool. He looked over at his watch. 6am.

His right arm felt weird, like it was bent at a funny angle. Lifting it up, the clammy skin caught a breeze of cold air and he heard a murmur. It was then he looked over at Remus.

In his sleep, he'd apparently thrown an arm over Remus, and worse, a leg. He tried to retract them without waking Remus, but the moment he'd lifted his arm, Remus had woken up, and was studying him with surprisingly awake eyes.

"Great, so now I'm cold," he said, and shivered theatrically.

Sirius let his arm fall. "Haven't you got robes somewhere?"

"Too far away," Remus said, arranging Sirius' arm until he was comfortable. Then he started to pull the fabric of Sirius' robe over himself.

"Hey, there isn't room for two in here, you know."

"There bloody is," Remus proved his point by mostly covering himself with the robe.

Sirius rolled away, aiming to sit up and go get Remus' stupid robe for him, but then he felt a pair of arms wrap around his chest and he pulled a face.

"Doesn't bother you, does it?" Remus asked, their faces only inches apart, resting on the awkward pillow of Sirius' arm.

"No," Sirius replied, automatically. He was famous for being cool and calm in all situations, or he liked to think so. This was a _bit_ on the weird side, but hey, nobody would ever know, right?

"You sure?"

Sirius jumped. In the small of his back, Remus' cold hand had found the gap between his untucked shirt and trousers. It was like having an ice cube sitting on his sleep-warm skin.

"The hell are you doing?" he asked, as the hand was joined by its brother.

"Warming my hands up."

"You can take your bloody ice-block hands and-"

Sirius shut up. Quite abruptly. The reason for this was Remus' lips, pressed against his own. He could see, slightly blurry and too close to focus on, that Remus had his eyes closed.

They made an awkward tableau for a few seconds, then Remus pulled away.

"The hell was that?" Sirius asked, having swept about his brain and found only the most banal question remaining within it.

"Warming my lips up."


	8. Lack of Initiative

"This is some kind of joke, right?"

"Well, that bit was. But the bit where I just kissed you? No, that was pretty serious."

Sirius could have thumped him, but his arm had gone dead and the other was too tangled up in robes and Remus to be extricated quickly enough.

"This has _got_ to be some sort of joke. Did you set this up with poser Prongs and fatty Wormtail? Going to be a great giggle round the common room fire, right? I know I'm due some sort of prank."

"It doesn't _have_ to be serious if you don't want," Remus said, continuing his half of the conversation without Sirius.

"What I want to know is, how did they manage that fainting stuff?"

"Sirius?"

"And the purple rash, that was something else..."

"Sirius?"

"What?"

"They're in the Infirmary. Because they're ill. This isn't a prank."

"Then what is it?"

Remus shrugged, an awkward movement inside the robe.

"Whatever, I suppose."

"You're seriously not going to have a laugh with poser Prongs about this?"

"Seriously."

Sirius extricated his hands from the robe just far enough to grab Remus' hair and kiss him. He could feel those ice-cube hands clench into fists behind his back, bunching up his shirt. It didn't deserve a place amongst the Great Kisses of History, but for a teenage boy who didn't get the opportunity to practise very often, it wasn't bad. It certainly left Remus dazed when Sirius pulled away.

"Now if you _ever_ tell _anyone_ about that, I will hex you so bad you will _wish_ it was full moon."

Remus was staring at him, his mouth a little 'o' of surprise. Sirius felt the blush start to rise, and _god _that was embarrassing. He fought it down, and brushed a lock of Remus' hair behind his ear.

"Never pass up the opportunity for a good snog, mate. You should know that by now."

The look of surprise didn't waver, and Sirius laughed, deflecting the blush back from his face again. He ran a thumb over Remus' lower lip.

"Best I'm going to get this week."

Remus recovered his voice.

"Thanks," he said, sarcastically.

"Could try again. You know, make it the best I'm going to get this month," Sirius grinned at Remus, who continued to stare. He sighed, "Lack of initiative, that's what your problem is."

He kissed Remus again, hands winding into that almost girlishly long hair. Remus' hands slid up his back, and although the cold wasn't as bad as the first initial shock it still made him shiver, trying to wriggle away from it, which only pressed him closer to Remus. Sirius was always an aggressive kisser (with the dozen or so girls who hadn't slapped him in the face when he'd tried to kiss them), and now was no different. If he was going to do this he was going to look back on it with pride.

He disengaged his fingers from Remus' hair and with a little wriggling slipped them out of the sleeves of his oversized robe, so they were now both entangled under what was now just a large black sheet. Feeling faintly like an explorer charting new ground, he slid his hands over Remus' skin, cold and damp with clammy sweat. Down his spine, round the narrow, angular hipbones, and up the front of the chest, which even though Sirius had been expecting it, it was still odd to find it flat, with a slight patch of hair in the middle. With his amount of experience (only three girls _hadn't_ slapped him by that point), it was something he'd get over quickly, but it was still a little disconcerting.

So far, so similar. It was almost disappointing.

It was getting warm under the robe, and even Remus' icy hands, tracking a path up the inside of Sirius' shirt, tickling along his spine, were warming up.

Sirius broke the kiss and experimentally leaned to kiss Remus' neck. This was supposed to be good for girls, maybe it worked on guys too. First a series of brief pecks, which elicited no response. Then one which was almost a bite, and _that_ made Remus squirm, whether with shock or pleasure, Sirius wasn't entirely sure, and wasn't going to ask, lest he break his own illusion of being an awesome lover.

As Sirius released his neck, Remus rolled, hauling the other boy atop him and causing a gust of cold air to hit them both as the robe moved. Some awkward rearranging of legs and robe later, and Sirius felt he was getting into his stride with this whole 'making out with Remus' thing.

Best not to think about it like that, to be honest. That made it _weird_. Making out with Remus-the-concept was _wrong_, unnatural and just plain strange, but then looking down at that face, at Remus-the-person, with flushed cheeks and tousled hair and slightly parted lips, that was easily one of the most attractive things Sirius had seen.

It took a few minutes before he realised he was grinding his hips against Remus, and there were embarrassing sensations from that sort of area that flagged up a reminder: _that_ didn't happen with girls. This was Remus-the-concept time again.

_Don't think about it._

Sirius followed his own sage advice, losing himself in the kissing and the writhing and the wandering hands until he'd forgotten entirely about the long afternoons of skiving in the common room, throwing things at each other and generally messing up all chance at homework. It seemed that all there was of Remus was here and now, sliding his hands over places Sirius hadn't previously thought of as erotic but were now aflame.

He found himself thinking, hypothetically, about what would happen if he took the rest of Remus' clothes off. It couldn't be _that_ difficult, right, that sort of thing?

He caught himself thinking the thought.

And Sirius Black knew it had gone too far.

With the greatest of effort, and protests from the various pleasure centres of his body, he pushed himself away from Remus, gathering his robe around him.

Remus just lay there, staring at the ceiling, his chest heaving, as goosebumps formed on his skin. He didn't make a move to follow Sirius.

"It's... five to seven," Sirius said, apologetically, "and Pomfrey's going to be here in an hour and I'm... well. You know." He gestured downwards.

There was a moment of silence. Remus continued to study the ceiling.

"Don't just lie there looking like some ravished woman," Sirius began to tidy himself, tucking his shirt in and sweeping the robe around his shoulders.

Remus turned his head to look at him, and Sirius could see the words forming on his lips.

"You didn't have to-"

"Yes, I did. Otherwise we'd have gotten into realms of weirdness I don't even want to think about."

"Didn't seem weird to me."

Sirius fought to frame the right words. "Really? This seems normal to you? Well Prongs can come with you next month and you can do the same thing all over again."

"Sirius. Relax."

Sirius glared at him.

"It's okay if you don't want to be that kind of friends."

"This goes _way_ beyond my boundaries of friendship, mate."

"Really?"

"Yes! Friends are friends and this is... this isn't friends."

"What were you going to say?"

"This is messed up."

Remus rolled over, laboriously, until he was resting his head on his hand and fully facing Sirius.

"This is just playing, Sirius. It's not sex-"

"_Don't_ say that word."

"When did you get all squeamish about language, Sirius?" Remus seemed amused.

"When you started using the wrong words."

Remus sat up, stretched, cricked his neck and studied Sirius. "So I take it this is a non-repeatable event."

Sirius looked at him, sitting there with his hair all messy and the sweat cooling on his skin, and the words died in his mouth.

"Never pass up the opportunity for a snog?" Remus laughed, and shuffled over to the box which held his clothes, safe from his werewolf rages.

"Something like that," Sirius crawled across the floor to where Remus was pulling his shirt on, and grabbed his wrist just before he got his second arm in the sleeve. "This isn't anything serious."

Remus smiled. "Of course not."

"We're still just friends," Sirius raised Remus' forearm to his lips, and kissed the pulse point on his wrist.

"Absolutely."

"Good," Sirius said, and kissed Remus on the mouth, briefly, chastely. He drew back, and shifted into his dog form.

"Now _that_ is weird. You're not getting a kiss like that," Remus said, as Sirius turned and headed down the passageway to the Whomping Willow and the Hogwarts grounds.


	9. How Very Traditional

By morning, James and Peter were completely recovered. It had apparently just been some bad salad dressing, or something, as a couple of other people on the Gryffindor table had fallen sick, and had similar recovery times.

There had been a few terse words exchanged, but as it became apparent that Remus had been successfully contained during the night, the boys relaxed into their usual selves. In their first free period, having skipped Divination to get some proper sleep, Sirius found his tennis ball and contented himself bouncing it off Peter's head as the boy was trying to do his homework. Remus scolded him vaguely, but his heart wasn't in it.

Life was good for Sirius.

Then, after lunch, during which everyone studiously avoided salad and squinted suspiciously at most of the food before eating it, there was Astronomy.

It took less than half a sentence for Remus to be persuaded to miss the lesson, and slightly more time than they were willing to spend trying to find a broom cupboard that didn't have something nasty lurking in it. The least Sirius would settle for was a deserted corridor, and every ten seconds a noise from somewhere would cause frantic disentangling, and staring around the corridor in paranoia.

It was lucky they did. James rounded the corner shortly after the lesson had begun, knuckles bloody, with a face like thunder.

"Hey, Prongs, what's up?" Sirius said, with a disarming grin that only served to highlight his flushed face.

"I think I just broke Snivellus' nose," James growled, wiping his hand in distaste.

"About time," was Sirius' response. "What finally inspired you to make a stand?"

"He's been the one making Lily think she's fat and has to go on a diet. Little bastard."

"Defending your girlfriend's honour. How very traditional, James." Remus commented, pulling his collar up to hide the bruise on his neck.

"Lily can defend her own damn honour. It's his fault I've had to eat leaves for a week!"


End file.
